Master teacher ridiculousness and crying again at school

Things are going very well with my "mean" master teacher, but now, for episode 2 where I had to clean myself up from crying before teaching as a result of a meeting with my master teacher, it was an incident with the "nice" master teacher. (I wish I could just give names, as I don't like referring to her that way at this moment.)

Thursday she had asked me to show her a "rough outline" of my plans forthe new book I'm starting in my 10th grade class. This is obviously quite a vague term, and apparently I misunderstood what she meant by this. Thursday what I had for her was a layout on a lesson-planning calendar of when I would be teaching each story in the book, the assessments for the unit, and a brief summary of the focus of each class this week. As far asI could tell, she was fine with what I had for her.

On Friday, after my class, I approached her to let her know that, based on the class that day--our first discussing this book--that I was going to reevaluate my plans for this week, which I felt were too sophisticated since the students had more trouble with the reading than I had anticipated. She had previously mentioned the idea a while back that I might choose to not teach all 5 stories in the book, and I had asked for her feedback on cutting 1 or 2 of the stories. She disagreed with cutting the story that I had been thinking to cut but seemed to be ok with me making that choice myself.

Fast forward to this morning. When I arrived at school, there was a note from her that she wanted to meet me after class today. In our meeting today, she told me how upset she was that I did not have a full unit plan for her on Thursday, and that she now sees what the other master teacher was talking about in the beginning of the semester. She said that based on what I showed her Thursday she wanted to rescind the overall positive evaluation she had sent in the day before, and that the plan I gave her Thurs as well as the conversation I had with her on Friday about cutting certain sections to be able to do a closer analysis of the parts we read gave her the impression that I am not prepared to teach this book. She further said that she didn't want to have to "defend her position" to me about why she thinks certain stories are important to teach, and that she feels that I ask her questions whenever I want but that when she asks me to have things for her, I do not.

I was extremely shocked and blindsided by this conversation as well as so many of the specifics in it. First of all, she had asked for a "rough outline," and then she freaked out (days later) because I didn't give her something more specific. This seems like a very clear misunderstanding of her not being precise with me about what she wanted and me assuming I knew what she wanted. What I gave her was a somewhat rougher outline than what I had shown her for the previous book I taught, but what she told me today that she wants--a full unit plan with daily objectives and the lessons spelled out for every day for the rest of this unit--is way more specific than I ever gave her for the previous book. When I explained this, she argued this point, pointing out a couple things that I gave her about that book, but I absolutely never gave her what she is asking for now, and I feel very confident with the job I did in teaching that book. The implication seemed to be that I am unprepared to teach this book because I don't have what I had for the other book prepared, but that is simply not the case. I feel I am no less prepared for this book than the previous one. Anyway, the fact that I know she feels I did a good job with the last book seemed to be a distant memory or somehow totally irrelevant since I didn't have the fleshed-out unit plan for her on Thursday that I didn'teven *know* she wanted. In addition, she also didn't say anything to me at the time on Thursday or Friday, so I don't understand how this just came up over the weekend. Shouldn't you tell someone at the time that whatthey're giving you is not what you wanted?

I let her know that I have not ever seen a unit plan modeled for me by her or any professional teacher--I just did one for one of my classes, discussed them a little in class--and that all I had seen from her when I had asked to see some of her plans last semester was her calendar layout, which is what I gave to her.

I will give her a beautiful unit plan by Wednesday--and I feel like that is something that I should have ideally had laid out before--but I am just exhausted at this point and really just feel like I want to throw something together to get her off myback, which is SO not the point, I know, but that's how I'm feeling.

The idea of saying she felt like she wanted to undo her positive recommendation of me based on this was offensive to me, not to mention absurd. She's observed me probably 15 times and met with me formally more than that and informally almost everyday, and based on this she has shifted her entire impression of me? Please.

When she said that she feels like I don't have the things that she asks me for I was completely shocked. I asked her what she was referring to, but she had no specifics. She referred back to me not being prepared for my meetings with the ohter master teacher (though she had asked me for something very different for those meetings), but there were *no* meetings that this teacher had asked me for something that I didn't have--well, none that I can remember and none that she said in response to that question. She mentioned that last Thursday I didn'thave a lesson plan for her while she was observing, but I hadn't realized she was observing that day so I hadn't printed anything out for her. And that was her only explanation of her saying something as harsh as that she generally feels I don't have the things she asks me for. It seemed like she was making this broad statement and somehow trying to build a case against me based on this thing on Thursday. I was really shocked and frustrated and angry at that point. Where did this even come from?

I know she and the other teacher meet occasionally, and I saw them meeting this morning. I wonder if they've decided to switch good cop-bad cop roles or something?

It's perfectly legit to ask me for a unit plan--I have no explanation for why I don't have one except that I'm freakin' tired. But do not to ask for a rough outline if you want a unit plan with unit goals and daily objectives tied to those goals.

Finally, I was shocked by her saying that she was bothered by my asking her opinion about which story to potentially leave out. She felt that this showed a lack of preperation on my part, but I had already given this a good amount of thought and wanted her opinion, assuming she wouldn't mind spending the time with me to offer that. I thought she would actually have input--you know, like mentorship?--to offer since she's taught this book 7 or 8 times, and I was curious about her thoughts on it. The idea that she felt she had to "defend her position" was ludicrous to me--I thought the conversation was very clearly me asking her her opinion, my offering ideas about other ways to introduce the ideas that seemed most important, and her offering her opinions about that. I did somewhat argue against her reasoning but in the spirit of two peers discussing a text--not in terms of her having to justify herself to me, as she interpreted it. I apologized to her for giving her the feeling that she needed to defend her opinion and told her that was completely not my intention for that conversation. Meanwhile, I told herthat I had no idea that she would have interpreted this in this way and that, frankly, I no longer would approach her to ask her opinion about such things. I thought when I said this, she would back up and say something like, "Well, feel free to ask my opinion," but she did not. Fine.

I am really furious and upset about this. This is now the second time that I have beenin the position of cleaning myself up right before class after crying witha master teacher. Some of that is me getting emotionally involved, but the blanket statements and generalizations this teacher was making about me in a waythat suggested that everything I'd ever done was undermined by my not having this thing for her on Thursday that I had misunderstood was just so frustrating. She carried herself in a much more professional way with me than the other master teacher did in terms of not yelling, using professional language, giving me a writeup of what she wants for Wednesday, yet I feel terrible about having to work with her at this point. I feel like I no longer trust her and want as little to do with her as possiblefor the rest of the semester. Her using vague language, resulting in me giving her something other than what she wanted, resulted in her losing confidence in me and thinking about me in an entirely different way and speaking to me as if I'm an incompetent slacker is just not right, especially given that she has been seeing me teach all semester and has given me very positive evaluations throughout. I'll give her the things she wants, but I will no longer see her as any kind of resource for me.

I'm just sick of feeling completely unappreciated and getting torn apart for everything I do that could be better and getting virtually no positive reinforcement, compliments, or support from these teachers. I do get lots of positive reinforcement from my students, who I know appreciate me in the way that students appreciate teachers they like, but to feel hassled and stressed and criticized all the time by supervisors is just not the environment I want to be in.

In class tonight, we had a guest speaker: a principal speaking about applying for teaching jobs. He pointed to our recommendations from our master teachers as key. Lovely. Who wants a fucking teaching job after this anyway?

I left class early after the break knowing I couldn't sit still for this discussion any longer. Yanan gave me a long hug when I explained I'd be leaving early and she saw the tears in my eyes.